BUY IT AT AMAZON: CLICK HERE & HERE
STUDIO: Sony Pictures
MSRP: $16.49 (Both)
RATED: Not rated (Both)
RUNNING TIME:
Vol. 6: 68 minutes,
Vol. 7: 66 minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES: None (Both)
The Pitch
The show that’s just in case you missed the other couple of thousand of incarnations of Spider-Man.
The Humans
Spider-Man crowd circa high school (Peter, Flash, Mary Jane, Liz, Gwen, Osborn and Spidey’s rogues gallery).
The Nutshell
This
is the most recent animated incarnation of Spider-Man, this time taking
the Webhead back to his awkward high school days with a few twists
thrown in. The usual cast of characters are all back as a
young (Olsen Twin-thin) Spidey goes up against his old foes such as Rhino, Doc Ock, Venom, Shocker and Hammerhead, while trying to maintain as
normal a high school existence as possible.
The Lowdown
First off, check out my Vol. 5 review from just a month ago here. What I said pretty much still holds here. The show is a fun reboot of our hero and all his supporting cast. It’s surprisingly appealing to either kids or adults who have been around to see many more incarnations of the Webhead. It has good action and Spidey’s trademark humor. But come on, $17 for three episodes? The kids the show’s aimed at wouldn’t be stupid enough to pay that. It’s the same old story with these snackfood offerings of cartoons or other shows. If there’s less than a full season, it’s a screwjob. Don’t buy it, and don’t buy it.
Most unexpected plot twist? Mary Jane’s sex tape…
Now that that’s clear, what about these six episodes? Good as usual. Spidey tangles with the returning Venom, Rhino, Sandman, Shocker, and the other New Enforcers. The episodes also build to a pending gang war between Doc Ock, Silvermane and Tombstone. The better episodes are in Vol. 7, which has multiple-pronged smackdowns between Spider-Man, the three criminal Kingpins and their henchmen, including Silver Sable and Hammerhead. On the Peter Parker front, he’s dealing with having a new girlfriend in Liz Allen but still really wanting Gwen Stacy.
Meanwhile, Gwen’s father, Capt. Stacy, is the best friend that both Parker and Spidey have, and neither of them knows it. And one of the Webhead’s more disturbing, glider-riding villains makes his return as well. What comes as a surprise that, aside from really old school villains like Hammerhead, the producers also include much more obscure characters, such as John Jameson’s Jupiter suit when he was exposed to space spores that turned him into a superpowered vigilante (Colonel Jupiter). This is all before the Man-Wolf of course. They also included officer Jean DeWolff, an eventual police detective who helped Spidey on o0ccasion but met with an untimely end in the comics. So yeah, no issue with the episodes, they’re very good in fact, just this rip-off of an offer on both accounts yet again.
Yeah, I didn’t really like that spider armor Stark came up with either.
The Package
Video is 1.78:1 and Audio is English Dolby 5.1. Pretty standard. Look elsewhere for special features.
Vol. 7: 4.4 out of 10